I remember one evening I was watching TV and flipping through channels until I saw a commercial that caught my attention. It was quite obvious why I would be interested in it because I was looking to lose weight at the time and I was being teased with what they called "the world's strongest fat burner".

That commercial was for a diet pill, it had all the regular promises of "easy" and "fast" weight loss combined with the fact that you can eat anything that you want. I did not buy the product but it always stuck in my mind because of the claim of being "The world's strongest fat burner".

After losing all the weight that I needed to and after educating myself about healthy eating and permanent weight loss, I came to find something else that is very close to being the world 's strongest fat burner and I am here to reveal what that is to you.

What I am talking about is water. If there is one thing that has the consensus of diet gurus and all the different weight loss programs out there, it is the use of water. You have heard all over the place that you need to drink water to help you lose weight, but:

Have you ever wondered why?

Have you ever asked yourself how does water help you lose weight?

If you do not know how exactly, it's not your fault. You see, nobody has a patent on water and it is something that is hard to mark up and make a ton of money from. There are not a lot of benefits for the weight loss marketers to taunt the virtues of water. People just know that water is important to weight loss, but since there is not a lot of money to be made out of water, marketers may make it seem like water is not as important to weight loss as say diets pills for example.

Before I reveal to you why I think water is the "world's strongest fat burner", I first want to dispel the biggest myth about water.

Some people do not drink enough water when they diet, thinking they will lose more weight if they don't retain any excess water. However, this is a myth and just the opposite happens. If you do not drink enough water every day, your body may be storing water and fat that you do not need or want .

Your body needs water and is sixty/seventy percent water. Nevertheless, if you do not drink enough water, your body thinks it is in danger and tries to hold onto all the water it can get. The water is stored between the cells and shows up as extra weight. Your feet, legs and hands may even swell up. However, when your body does get enough water, the extra stored water weight is released and you will easily see the difference on the scale.

In addition, the more water you drink, the less you'll eat. Water is nature's own appetite suppressant. A glass of water before eating will help you feel full and eat less. You will also get rid of extra salt by drinking water (salt can also cause the body to hold onto water).

Besides all this, there is another reason why I believe water is "the world's strongest fat burner", and it's a shame that almost nobody talks about it.

You need water for your body to burn fat. Here is why :

You see, your liver is a fat burning organ. It is there to help you burn body fat; therefore, you need the liver to function at optimal level for the best weight loss results.

Now, without water, your kidneys cannot do their job of eliminating wastes properly and your liver must then pitch in to help. While your liver is busy helping out the kidneys, the liver then cannot burn as much fat as it could, so some of the fat that would normally be used as fuel gets stored in your body as fat instead.

Drinking more water helps your kidneys do their job and indirectly allows your liver to get back to its own job of turning fat into fuel.

Now you can easily see why something as simple as drinking water would have more of an effect on your weight loss efforts than say a $60 diet pill bottle.

Your next question might be, "How much water do I need to accomplish this?" I am sure that you have heard about the standard recommendation of drinking at least eight, 8 oz. glasses of water every day. However, this is just for maintaining normal body function on a regular basis. If you are looking to lose weight, you need to drink more than that.

Have you ever wonder why eight glasses of water is the recommendation for everybody. No matter how much you weight or how much you exercise. This does not seem like a sensible advice at all. However, it is the 'general recommendation" about water.

Do you think a 120 pounds person needs as much water as 300 pounds person?

My recommendation is to drink half your bodyweight in ounces of water. For example if you weight 200 pounds, your goal should be to consume about 100 ounces of water a day.

Now, I have one last tip about getting more water into your system.

If you are accustomed to drinking just one to two glasses a day, trying to change suddenly to 8-10 glasses a day is just a recipe for failure. Instead, try to improve to 4 glasses for the next 2-3 weeks and when you feel comfortable with that, you can move on to the next level until you can easily handle more than 8 glasses a day.